216 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Dec. 



tions. I find also that in A. D. 1600-63 the price of the pice was some- 

 times 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, to 24 to a mam tali, and on this account 

 the East India Company's accounts at Surat were kept in what was 

 called book-rate pice, viz. 32 to the mamudi, and although the rupee 

 was nominally of the value of 2J mamudis, 8, 10, and sometimes 20 

 per cent, was given for the batta or exchange. Akbar's regulations 

 are certainly extremely interesting, and to some extent valuable : but 

 I do not think they are safe data for calculating the rate at which gold 

 exchanged against silver, generally, in his times. Nor will the aptitude 

 of these remarks apply solely to the mint regulations of Akbar, or 

 of Oriental Potentates. In the reign of Henry VIII. the relative 

 values of gold and silver were so inaccurately appreciated by the mint 

 authorities of England, that, while they rated pure gold at only 60s., they 

 rated pure silver at 12s. the ounce, or 5 to 1. And in the reign of Ed- 

 ward VI., the value of gold, expressed in silver, was reduced even lower, 

 or to 48s. the ounce. But not many years later, i. e. in 1551, or five 

 years before Akbar ascended the throne, we find that, while gold was 

 still rated at 60s., silver was rated at 5s. 5c?. the ounce, or a little more 

 than 11 to 1 ; and I cannot find from any accurate source, that gener- 

 ally in India it was ever in more recent times much below this. The 

 first silver currency at Athens dates from B. C. 512 ; the first gold 

 coins, which were very debased, being struck about B. C. 407 ; and 

 the copper about the same time. The gold in those days was scarce ; 

 few, if any, gold coins being struck until the time of Alexander the 

 Great. At the same time gold was plentiful in India, for although 

 we find no gold Bactrian coins, on the disruption of the Greek 

 kingdom and the succession of the Indo-Sythic race of kings, we 

 observe the silver to disappear and its place to be occupied by gold. In 

 those days, certainly the relative values of gold and silver in India 

 were very different from what they were in the times of Akbar, 

 when India had a large coast trade, and means of obtaining silver 

 from other sources. In the days of Solomon also, gold was so 

 abundant, that silver was not taken into account (2 Chron. ix. 20) : 

 but Herodotus tells us (III. 93) that the rate at Babylon was 13 to 

 1, and Plato (hat in his time it was 12 to 1. Under the Kepublic at 

 Rome, ii was 13 to 1, and in the time of Julius Csesar, it was about 

 12 to 1. In the reign of Constantine it rose to 15 to 1, and under 



